The accepted wisdom on Congress is that the presidential campaign is likely to crowd out most real work until after Nov. 6, when all its focus abruptly changes to the fiscal cliff.

There is, though, one important noncontroversial matter that the Senate should take up now — as have previous Senates at this time: confirming district judges.

A government that can’t do its mundane business is surely unlikely to be able to deal with more controversial problems. History shows that the Senate should be able to confirm a respectable number of long-standing district court nominations before Election Day — certainly before adjournment. If it cannot, this may signal that the past four years of delayed and confrontational nominations have not been an aberration but represent the new normal of district court confirmations.

Sixty-one of the nation’s 673 lifetime appointment district court judgeships are vacant. President Barack Obama has submitted nominees to fill 24 of the vacancies. Seventeen of the 24 have cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee and are awaiting final action by the full Senate.

As of Sept. 10, the Senate had confirmed 126 of Obama’s district nominees — 81 percent. In comparison, President George W. Bush had a 97 percent district confirmation success rate in his first four years, and President Bill Clinton an 87 percent rate.

If the Senate confirms 10 of the 17 Obama nominees, this would lift his four-year success rate to equal Clinton’s. Confirming all 17 would lift it to 91 percent.

Rates aside, however, even if all 17 were confirmed, Obama would have made roughly 20 fewer district appointees than Clinton or Bush. Obama has submitted fewer nominees.

Extended vacancies often mean long delays, especially in civil cases. They often mean full caseloads for judges in their 70s and beyond — despite statutory promises that, at that age, judges who have put in substantial service are entitled to scale back.

Filling judicial vacancies is part of the business of government, and like much of that business, it is more mundane than dramatic. Federal district caseloads consist largely of commercial disputes and federal crimes like immigration law violations — issues important to litigants and collectively important to all of us. They are part of how our society resolves disputes and help set the framework for commercial and social intercourse.

But you might say, judges can’t get confirmed this close to a presidential election because opposition senators are hoping their guy will soon be in the White House and make his own nominations to those vacancies.

That may be true now for court of appeals nominees — you have to go back to the first Bush administration to find a circuit confirmation after July of a presidential election year — but not for district courts. There’s plenty of precedent for late-election year confirmations.

In 1980, 1984 and 1992 — when Presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush were up for reelection — the Senate each time confirmed roughly 10 district court nominees between the political conventions and election day. That number dropped to zero in 1996 under Clinton but shot up to six in 2004 under Bush.

In years when the incumbent president wasn’t on the ballot, the Senate also confirmed district judges, including 10 in September 2008 — even as Obama’s victory seemed increasingly likely.

There’s plenty of recent precedent for confirming at least the 17 pending Obama nominees. But the past four years of district confirmations haven’t followed precedent.

Not only is the confirmation rate lower, at least for now, but time from nomination to confirmation has spiked. Eight percent of Clinton’s district confirmations in the first four years took more than 180 days, as did 27 percent of Bush’s. But it’s now up to 67 percent for Obama.

The increase in time has been matched by an increase in contentiousness. All of Clinton’s district appointees were confirmed by voice vote — even those who merited more attention, like the subsequently impeached and convicted Thomas Porteous of New Orleans. All but four of Bush’s appointees were approved by either voice or unanimous vote. Of the four, one got 20 “no” votes and one got 46.

Most of Obama’s appointees have also been confirmed with no, or token, opposition — even those who waited a long time. But 11 received more than 20 “no” votes. It’s hard to believe, however, that the quality of Obama appointees plunged so decisively compared with those of his immediate predecessors.

So district confirmations — especially in double digits — in the next several months may be iffy, and those who do get confirmed will have waited considerably longer than late-year confirmations in previous administrations.

We’ve come to accept, or at least recognize, as the new normal that only six or seven out of every 10 circuit nominees will get Senate approval. Are the district courts next?

Russell Wheeler is a visiting fellow in The Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies Program and president of the Governance Institute.